Lamb Giourvesti – A Wonderful Greek Meal
Here’s another Cretan/Greek classic which is often murdered in tavernas which cook it first thing in the morning and leave it the whole day in a warmed cabinet. For that reason it’s a dish best to eat at luchtime if you find it. Here in Paleochora there are only a few tavernas still making the dish so you do have to seek it out.
I have steered away slightly from absolute traditional in a couple of ways – but you will thank me. The first is that the recipe popularly uses lambs’ heads, whereas I recommend either shoulder or boned leg. The other I will alert you to at the end.
So you will need:
About 1200g of Lamb shoulder or leg, cut into large pieces.
3 or 4 Ripe tomatoes skinned and roughly chopped (not too small)
A large onion finely chopped
2 or 3 Cloves of garlic finely chopped
500g Rice pasta (kritharaki)
A couple of bay leaves
A spig of rosemary
100ml. Good quality olive oil
500ml water
Salt & pepper
First score the tomatoes and put them in boiling water. While they are resting ready for peeling, heat a heavy based frying pan with a little drizzle of olive oil and seal the lamb, adding the sprig of rosemary. Preheat the oven to 200 c.
Tip the sealed lamb into an oven tray with the juices. Add the 100ml olive oil, the bay leaves, the chopped onion, the garlic, half a glass of water, salt & pepper. Skin the tomatoes, roughly chop them and add them to the oven dish too.
Cover this with foil and chuck it into the oven for about one and a half hours. Sit down and have a glass or two of wine.
Then add the 500ml of water and the 500g of rice pasta, stir the dish around cover and put back in the oven for 20 minutes.
Then uncover and check that the pasta is cooked. If it needs a little extra water add it now, cover again and cook a further few minutes. If it’s OK, uncover and put in the oven for a further 2 or 3 minutes to colour the top of the meat.
There you have it. Forget ‘al dente’. The pasta will seem over-cooked in a classic pasta sense but that is intentional and adds to the charm of this dish.
Oh, yes….to be completely traditional, leave out the onion, garlic, rosemary and bay leaves. But also you will be leaving out a lot of the taste.
This recipe is from The Paleochora Site and is updated every month. The Paleochora site is not only an online resource for people wishing to visit Paleochora, a traditional Greek village on the south west coast of Crete, but also serves as an online home for all those who love the place.
Next recipe…a veggie one…promise!
Kali orexi
Get realistic info in the sphere of working with children – welcome to your individual guide.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment